Thread:Evil Tim/@comment-6769189-20190501195941/@comment-134861-20190505234306

> Canon to what, exactly?

...canon in the sense that the discussion started with, you claiming that the manga was "external material".

> In that instance you get something like the Cthulhu Mythos wherein it's a body of works sharing a central theme and a loose continuity, but only taking specific facets of each other and not necessarily regarding any other facets as having happened.

...I feel like if you know enough about Cthulhu to mention that there are multiple authors, you should understand why there are multiple authors -- because it's in the public domain. Which is completely separate from the situation with Devil May Cry.

> For that you need him saying "it is canon,"

That is just completely not how it works. An author's works (and in this case, the author would be capcom -- they own the setting, and can decide what can be published under it) that are placed in the same setting are implicitly understood to be part of the same canon ''unless' otherwise specified. Rowling did not have to explicitly state that Philosopher's Stone was canon to Chamber of Secrets for it to be understood -- and neither does she have to state "this is canon" each time she mentions something on pottermore.

The oblique references to DMC in Bayonetta or Digimon would not count as part of the canon, because they were made completely externally with no expressed consent from the original author (Capcom). But other than DmC, which was explicitly (and correctly) stated to be a re-imagining of the setting, none of the DMC publications would fall under that.

> Like I said, you can say a fanfic occurs at a specific point in a timeline, that statement is meaningless by itself.

And for that fanfic, saying so would implicitly communicate that the earlier works are within that fanfics continuity, and within the canon of the fanfic. It's a separate thing.